11 Lhasa Tibetan
4.3 Finding the underlying form
katto kattoa ‘roof’
kello kelloa ‘clock’
kirya kiryaa ‘book’
külm külm ‘cold’
koulu koulua ‘school’
lintu lintua ‘bird’
hüllü hüllü ‘shelf’
kömpelö kömpelö ‘clumsy’
nkö nkö ‘appearance’
b. yoki yokea ‘river’
kivi kive ‘stone’
muuri muuria ‘wall’
naapuri naapuria ‘neighbor’
nimi nime ‘name’
kaappi kaappia ‘chest of drawers’
kaikki kaikkea ‘all’
kiirehti kiirehti ‘hurry’
lehti lehte ‘leaf’
mki mke ‘hill’
ovi ovea ‘door’
posti postia ‘mail’
tukki tukkia ‘log’
iti iti ‘mother’
englanti englantia ‘England’
yrvi yrve ‘lake’
koski koskea ‘waterfall’
reki reke ‘sledge’
vki vke ‘people’
We might assume that the underlying form of the root is the same as the nominative (which has no suffix). The problem which these data pose is that in some nouns, the partitive appears to be simply the nominative plus the suffix -⬃-a(for example muuri ⬃muuria), but for other nouns the final vowel alternates, with [i] in the nominative and [e] in the parti- tive (e.g. yoki⬃yokea). It is obvious that the nature of the following vowel does not explain this alternation, since the same surface-quality suffix vowel can appear after either e or i – compare yokea, nime where [e]
appears before both [a] and [], versus muuria, kiirehtiwhere [i] appears before these same vowels. Nor can the preceding consonant be called upon to predict what vowel will appear in the partitive, as shown by pairs such as tukkia, kaikkeaversus lehte, iti.
This is an area where there is (potentially) a difference between lan- guage-learning pedagogy and a formal linguistic analysis. Faced with the problem of learning the inflectional distinction muuri⬃ muuriaversus yoki⬃yokea, a second-language class on Finnish might simply have the stu- dent memorize a list of words like yoki⬃yokeawhere the vowel changes in the inflectional paradigm. From the point of view of linguistic analysis
this is the wrong way to look at the question, since it implies that this is not a rule-governed property of the language. However, second-language learning is not the same as linguistic analysis: a class in foreign-language instruction has a different goal from a class in analysis, and some stu- dents in a language class may receive greater practical benefit from just memorizing a list of words. Thus it is important to distinguish the teach- ing method where one learns arbitrary lists, and a theoretically based analysis. One simply cannot predict what vowel will appear in the parti- tive form if one only considers the pronunciation of the nominative. This means: nominative forms are not the same as underlying forms (some- thing that we also know given the previous Russian example). The under- lying representation must in some way contain that information which determines whether there will be a vowel alternation in a given word.
In looking for the phonological basis for this vowel alternation, it is important to realize that the alternation in stem-final vowels is not chaotic, for we find precisely two possibilities, either iin the nominative paired with iin the partitive, or iin the nominative paired with ein the partitive – never, for example, ipaired with uor ipaired with o. Moreover, only the vowel ienters into such a vowel alternation in Finnish, so there are no nouns with oin the nominative which is replaced by uin the par- titive, nor is uin the nominative ever replaced by oor any other vowel in the partitive. One final fact about the data in (6) suggests exactly how the right underlying representations can explain this alternation: of the eight vowels of Finnish (i, ü, e, ö, , u, o, a), all of them appear at the end of the word except the vowel e. Now, since the stem of the word for
‘name,’ which appears as nimiin the nominative, actually appears on the surface as nime-in the partitive, it is not at all unreasonable to assume that the underlying form of the stem is in fact /nime/. It would be a bit bizarre to assume an underlying form such as /nima/, since the vowel [a]
never appears in that position in any form of this word: the most natural assumption to make is that the underlying form of a morpheme is actu- ally composed of segments found in some surface manifestation of the morpheme. On the other hand, the stem of the word for ‘wall’ is pro- nounced muuriin both the nominative and the partitive, and therefore there is no reason to assume that it is underlyingly anything other than /muuri/.
We will then assume that the underlying vowel at the end of the stem is actually reflected by the partitive form, and thus we would assume underlying representations such as /yoke/, /nime/, /kive/, /lehte/, /ove/ and so on, as well as /muuri/, /naapuri/, /kaappi/, /tukki/ and so on. The under- lying form of partitive [yoke-a] would thus be /yoke-a/, that is, no rule at all is required to explain the partitive. Instead, a rule is needed to explain the surface form of the nominative [yoki], which derives from /yoke/. A very simple neutralizing rule can explain the surface form of the nominative:
underlying word-final eis raised to i.
(7) Final vowel raising e S i / #
This is a natural assumption but not an absolute rule, as we see in chapter 9.
Underlying forms can contain segments not found in any form of the word. Only when there is strong evidence for departing from this assumption are you justified in setting up underlying forms with such abstract elements.
This rule is neutralizing since the distinction between /i/ and /e/ is neu- tralized by applying this rule: an underlying /e/ becomes phonetic [i].
Apart from illustrating how important correct underlying forms are, these two examples have also shown that it is dangerous, and incorrect in these two cases, to assume that the “most basic” form of a word according to morphological criteria is also the underlying form of the word. To reit- erate: the underlying form of a morpheme is a hypothesis set forth by the analyst, a claim that by assuming such-and-such an underlying form, plus some simple set of rules (which need to be discovered by the analyst), the observed variation in the shape of morphemes can be explained.
Kerewe. To better understand the reasoning that leads to correct under- lying forms, we investigate other examples. Consider the following data from Kerewe.
(8) Infinitive 1sg habitual 3sg habitual Imperative
kupaamba mpaamba apaamba paamba ‘adorn’
kupaaŋga mpaaŋga apaaŋga paaŋga ‘line up’
kupima mpima apima pima ‘measure’
kupuupa mpuupa apuupa puupa ‘be light’
kupekea mpekea apekea pekea ‘make fire with stick’
kupiinda mpiinda apiinda piinda ‘be bent’
kuhiiga mpiiga ahiiga hiiga ‘hunt’
kuheeka mpeeka aheeka heeka ‘carry’
kuhaaŋga mpaaŋga ahaaŋga haaŋga ‘create’
kuheeba mpeeba aheeba heeba ‘guide’
kuhiima mpiima ahiima hiima ‘gasp’
kuhuuha mpuuha ahuuha huuha ‘breath into’
We notice that every infinitive begins with ku-, which we surmise is the prefix for the infinitive; the third-singular habitual form has the prefix a-, and the first-singular habitual has the prefix m-; the imperative involves no prefix. In addition to segmental prefixes, there is a change in the first consonant of the stem in some verbs, in some contexts. The initial conso- nant of the verb meaning ‘guide’ alternates between [h] and [p], with [p]
appearing in the first-singular habitual after [m] and [h] appearing else- where. Since this stem appears in two surface variants, [heeba] and [peeba], two plausible hypotheses are immediately possible: the stem is underlyingly /peeba/, or the stem is underlyingly /heeba/. If we assume that the stem is underlyingly /heeba/, we require a rule to explain the divergence between the predicted form of the first-singular habitual form – we would expect ⴱ[mheeba], ⴱ[mhiima], etc. – and the actual form of the verb, [mpeeba], [mpiima] and so on. Since in fact we do not see the sequence /mh/ anywhere in the data, we might assume the following neutralizing rule.
(9) Postnasal hardening h Sp / nasal In this example we
only have direct evidence for the change after m, so it would be possible to restrict our rule to the more specific context “after m.”
But this would run counter to basic assumptions of science, that we seek the most general explanations possible, not the most restricted ones.
If, on the other hand, we assume that the root is underlyingly /peeba/, we would need a rule which changes /p/ into [h] when not preceded by a nasal – in other words, when preceded by a vowel or by nothing. There is no single property which groups together word-initial position and vowels. Thus, the supposed rule changing /p/ to [h] would have to be a disjunction of two separate environments.
(10)
This suggests that rule (10) is wrong.
More important than the greater complexity of the rule entailed by assuming that the word for ‘guide’ is underlyingly /peeba/, it is empirical- ly wrong: rule (10) implicitly claims that /p/ should always become [h] word initially or after a vowel, but this is falsified by forms such as kupaamba, apaamba, paamba‘adorn’ and kupaaŋga, apaaŋga, paaŋga ‘line up.’ If we assume the stems uniformly begin with /p/, then we cannot predict whether the imperative or infinitive has [h] (kuhaaŋga) or [p] (kupaaŋga).
On the other hand, if we assume an underlying contrast between initial /h/ and initial /p/ – i.e. haaŋga ‘create’, paaŋga ‘arrange’ – then we can correctly distinguish those stems which begin with /h/ from those which begin with /p/ when no nasal precedes, as well as correctly neutraliz- ing that distinction just in case the stem is preceded by a nasal (mpaaŋga
‘I create’; ‘I arrange’).
English plurals. A further illustration of how to determine the correct underlying representation comes from English. As the following examples illustrate, the surface form of the plural suffix varies between [s] and [z]
(as well as [z], to be discussed later).
(11) kps caps kbz cabs klmz clams
kts cats kdz cads knz cans
kaks cocks kagz cogs karz cars
pruwfs proofs hυvz hooves gəlz gulls
fliyz fleas
plwz plows
pyrez purees
The generalization regarding distribution is straightforward: [s] appears after a voiceless segment, and [z] appears after a voiced one (be it an obstruent, a liquid, nasal or a vowel).
This same alternation can be found in the suffix marking the third sin- gular present-tense form of verbs.
(12) slps slaps stbz stabs slmz slams
hιts hits haydz hides knz cans
powks pokes dιgz digs hŋz hangs
pSh/•
# V
¶
lfs laughs θrayvz thrives hiylz heals
pιθs piths beyðz bathes hιrz hears
flayz flies viytowz vetos
If we suppose that the underlying form of the affixes for noun plural and third singular present verbs are /z/, then we would assume the fol- lowing rule to derive the phonetic variant [s].
(13) obstruent S voiceless / voiceless
On the other hand, if we were to assume that these suffixes are underly- ingly /s/, we would assume the following rule.
(14) obstruent S voiced / voiced
In terms of the simplicity and generality of these two rules, the analy- ses are comparable. Both formulations require the same number of pho- netic specifications to state the rule, and both formulations apply to gen- eral and phonetically natural classes. However, the two analyses differ quite significantly in terms of their overall predictions for English. The implicit prediction of the first rule (13) is that there should be no voiced obstruents after voiceless segments in English, since that rule would devoice all such obstruents. This generalization seems to be correct: there are no words like ⴱ[yəkd], ⴱ[pιfz], ⴱ[sdap]. The implicit prediction of the sec- ond rule (14) is different: that rule implies that there should be no voice- less segments after any voiced segments. This is manifestly incorrect, as shown by the existence of words such as [hιs] hiss, [pθ] path, [dns] dance, [fals] false. We prefer a hypothesis which makes the correct prediction about the phonetic structure of the language as a whole, and thus we select the underlying form /z/ and a rule devoicing obstruents after voice- less segments. Looking for such asymmetries plays an important role in determining which of two hypotheses is the correct one.
The alternation z⬃sis not limited to the two affixes -z‘plural’ and -z
‘3sg present tense.’ The rule of devoicing can also be seen applying to the possessive suffix -z.
(15) Noun Noun poss.
kt kts cat
sləg sləgz slug
klm klmz clam
snow snowz snow
Moreover, certain auxiliary verbs such as has[hz] and is[ιs] undergo a reduction in casual speech, so that they appear simply as [s] or [z], the choice between these two being determined by the devoicing rule which we have motivated.
(16) Noun + has Reduced Noun + is Reduced
k hz iyʔn+ ks iyʔn+ k ιz iyDιŋ ks iyDιŋ Jack pt hz iyʔn+ pts iyʔn+ pt ιz iyDιŋ pts iyDιŋ Pat
εn hz iyʔn+ εnz iyʔn+ εn ιz iyDιŋ εnz iyDιŋ Jen bab hz iyʔn+ babz iyʔn+ bab ιz iyDιŋ babz iyDιŋ Bob ow hz iyʔn+ owz iyʔn+ ow ιz iyDιŋ owz iyDιŋ Joe The devoicing rule (13) automatically explains the alternation in the sur- face shape of the consonant here as well.
Jita tone. It is important to look for correlations which may lead to causal explanations, in analyzing data. Consider the following data from Jita, concentrating on the tones of morphemes (H or high tone is marked with acute accent, L or low-toned syllables are unmarked).
(17) a. okuuma ‘to hit’ okusia ‘to block’
okuumira ‘to hit for’ okusiira ‘to block for’
okuumana ‘to hit e.o.’ okusiana ‘to block e.o.’
okuumirana ‘to hit for e.o.’ okusiirana ‘to block for e.o.’
b. okulúma ‘to bite’ okukúa ‘to fold’
okulumíra ‘to bite for’ okukuíra ‘to fold for’
okulumána ‘to bite e.o.’ okukuána ‘to fold e.o’
okulumírana ‘to bite for e.o.’ okukuírana ‘to fold for e.o’
We can conclude that there is a prefix oku- perhaps marking the infinitive, a suffix -aappearing at the end of every verb, and two suffixes -ir- ‘for’ and -ɑn- ‘each other.’ There are also root morphemes: -um- ‘hit,’ -si- ‘block,’ as well as -lúm- ‘bite’ and -kú- ‘fold.’ We decide that ‘bite’ and ‘fold’ underly- ingly have H tones in part based on the fact that there actually is an H tone on the vowels of these roots in the simplest verb forms.
In addition, we observe that the suffixes -ir- and -ɑn- have H tone when they come immediately after these verb roots. The suffixes do not have H tone after the first set of roots: appearance of H on the suffix is correlat- ed with which morpheme immediately precedes the suffix. Since this unpredictable property is correlated with the preceding root morpheme, it must therefore be an aspect of the underlying form of the preceding morpheme.
We thus explain the H tone on these suffix morphemes by positing that [oku-lum-án-a] derives from underlying /oku-lúm-an-a/, by applying a rule of tone shift which shifts a H tone rightward to the following syllable, as long as the syllable is not word-final. Because of the restriction that H does not shift to a final syllable, the underlying H surfaces unchanged in [okulúma].
Now consider the following data.
(18) okumuúma ‘to hit okumusía ‘to block
him/her’ him/her’
okumuúmira ‘to hit for okumusíira ‘to block for
him/her’ him/her’
okuiúma ‘to hit it’ okuisía ‘to block it’
okuiúmira ‘to hit okuisíira ‘to block
for it’ for it’
When the L-toned roots of (17a) stand after the object prefixes -mu-
‘him/her’ and -i- ‘it,’ they have an H tone at the beginning of the root.
Again, since the presence of the H is correlated unpredictably with the prefixes -mu- and -i-, we hypothesize that the tones are partof the under- lying representation of the prefixes – the prefixes are /mú/ and /í/, and the H tone shifts to the right by the tone shift rule which we have already posited.
You should now be able to apply this reasoning to data which pose analo- gous problems; a series of examples are given in this section for practice.
Chamorro vowel alternations. There are alternations in the quality of vowels in initial syllables in some contexts seen in the following data from Chamorro.
(19) gwíhən ‘fish’ i gwíhən ‘the fish’
gúməʔ ‘house’ i gíməʔ ‘the house’
kátta ‘letter’ yoʔ kátta ‘a letter (object)’
i k´ tta ‘the letter’
tsúpa ‘cigarettes’ i tsípa ‘the cigarettes’
fínoʔ ‘talk’ mi fínoʔ ‘lots of talk’
túnuʔ ‘to know’ en tínuʔ ‘you know’
tsúgoʔ ‘juice’ mi tsígoʔ ‘lots of juice’
sóŋsuŋ ‘village’ i séŋsuŋ ‘the village’
húluʔ ‘up’ sn híluʔ ‘upward’
pétsu ‘chest’ i pétsu ‘the chest’
tómu ‘knee i tému ‘the knee’
ótdut ‘ant’ mi étdut ‘lots of ants’
óksuʔ ‘hill’ gi éksuʔ ‘at the hill’
dáŋkulu ‘big one’ i d´ŋkulu ‘the big one’
láhi ‘male’ i l´ hi ‘the male’
lágu ‘north’ sn l´ gu ‘toward north’
pulónnun ‘trigger fish’ i pulónnun ‘the trigger fish’
mundóŋgu ‘cow’s stomach’ i mundóŋgu ‘the cow’s stomach’
putamonéda ‘wallet’ i putamonéda ‘the wallet’
What underlying representations, and what rule or rules, are required to account for these data? When you answer this question, you should con- sider two hypotheses which differ in particular about what form is taken to be underlying – what are the two most obvious ways of treating these alternations? One of these hypotheses is clearly wrong; the other is the correct hypothesis.
Korean. Now consider the following data from Korean. The first column, the imperative, seems to involve a vowel suffix. One reason to think that there is an imperative suffix is that every imperative ends either in the